Spatial Planning: A New Definition, Concepts and Principles

Introduction

Spatial planning aims at shaping the spatial organization of human and non-human forces. While the term “spatial planning” has become increasingly prominent in contemporary geographical discipline, its conceptual definition and foundations remain theoretically underdeveloped. This paper seeks to address this gap by proposing a new definition of spatial planning. Accordingly, spatial planning is a normative-collective-rational-political action oriented toward the graphing and re-graphing of spatial patterns and processes of domination through the production and actualization of spatial maps and plans across different geographical and temporal horizons. The study conceptualizes spatial planning as a normative, collective, rational, and political action directed toward the (re)configuration of spatial patterns and processes of domination. It distinguishes spatial planning from other forms of public planning, such as economic or social planning, by emphasizing its unique concern with the graphing and re-graphing of space.
 
 

Research methodology

The study adopts a philosophical-theoretical methodology, building mainly on the two concepts of space and domination to reinterpret spatial planning as a field of power relation, on the one hand among human forces, and on the other hand between human and non-human forces. It synthesizes ideas from philosophy, political theory, and geography to develop a conceptual framework for spatial planning. The article proceeds through two central analytical axes including a) the political–rational–normative collective action which situates spatial planning within the broader spectrum of public planning practices and emphasizes its inherent political nature and collective rationality and b) the (re)graphing of spatial patterns of domination which elucidates how spatial planning operates as an active practice of spatial reconfiguration, both of which reveal and transform relations of power among human and non-human actants.
 

Results and discussion

The findings of this article are articulated across two major conceptual axes. The first assumes spatial planning as a normative political action. In this regard, spatial planning is interpreted as an arena of confrontation between active and reactive forces. Drawing on Nietzsche, this article argues that active forces are creative, affirming, and capable of generating new spatial configurations, whereas reactive forces seek to preserve existing spatial orders and inhibit innovation. Spatial planning, therefore, is never a neutral process but a political battlefield where the will to create and the will to conserve contend for dominance. True spatial planning, in this sense, is characterized by its creative will, its capacity to reimagine spatial relationships and produce new forms of spatial relation of power. Furthermore, the article introduces a sophisticated understanding of political action in spatial planning. The concept of political action here does not simply refer to governmental domain or policy-making but to the ontological condition of choice among competing spatial configurations and patterns. Every act of selecting one spatial pattern over another constitutes a political act, for it implies an exercise of power and a moral judgment regarding who benefits and who is excluded. Therefore, spatial planning is unavoidably political, and claims to scientific neutrality serve only to obscure its underlying power dynamics. In addition, rationality is reconceptualized in this article as collective rationality. While individual rationality privileges the pursuit of private interests, collective rationality emphasizes participation and the democratic inclusion of all the spatial actors and units affected by spatial plans. The legitimacy of spatial planning, as argued here, depends upon its ability to safeguard the spatial interests of the majority rather than the privileges of an elite minority. Democracy, thus, functions not as an end in itself but as an instrumental mechanism for realizing activity and creativity in line with the spatial interests of the majority. In this sense, spatial planning becomes an ethical-political process through which the society learns, via trial, error and reflexivity, to align spatial structures with the collective will. The second conceptual axis is concerned with the (re)graphing of the spatial patterns of domination, or the moral and ontological dimensions of spatial domination. The article defines domination as the relational dynamic between dominant spaces and subordinated spaces. These relations are intrinsic to all social-spatial systems. The task of spatial planning, however, is not to perpetuate subordination but to transform subordinated spaces into dominant, active, and creative spaces. Thus, the ethical mandate of planning is to expand the geography of active forces. Engaging with Nietzsche’s and Deleuze’s interpretations of will to power, the article advances the idea that spatial planning must aim for the normalization of domination; i.e., the structuring of domination according to moral and democratic norms that promote spatial creativity. The present article contends that the true spatial banality of evil lies in the normalization of reactive, passive, and uncreative spaces. Evil, therefore, is not the exercise of domination per se but the proliferation of spaces devoid of agency and innovation. From this perspective, spatial planning is legitimate only insofar as it fosters the multiplication of dominant spaces and resists the reproduction of subordinated (reactive) ones.
 

Conclusion

This article concludes that spatial planning is both a product and a producer of power relations. Its legitimacy derives from its capacity to nurture creative and active spaces rather than reinforcing passive and reactive ones. The key principles that define the  new conceptualization in this research are 1) spatial planning is a field of the encounter between active and reactive forces, wherein spatial planning is conceptualized as an active process within this interaction, 2) spatial planning is ironic in its nature, 3) spatial planning directs its political action in line with the dominant spaces, 4) spatial planning is inherently a normative process, with the capacity to continuously rearticulate its norms in accordance with the dominant spaces, and 5) spatial planning seeks to normalize spatial patterns and processes of human and non-human domination actants through spatial plans. Rather than subordinating spaces to dominant spaces, it improves subordinated spaces into dominant spaces. Pursuing these principles expresses the highest, yet equally utopian, dimension of the active-oriented character of spatial planning.